Whether you are shopping for a new home or want to update your current home here are 5 features which are among the most popular with home buyers. Even if one does not appeal to you it’s smart to keep in mind when considering your home’s future resale value.

Energy Efficiency

Now more than ever, we are a population of energy conscious consumers. Today’s home buyers are often in search of sustainable design features that conserve energy. From construction details like solar panels and reclaimed building materials to energy saving appliances, doors, and windows, the trend is here to stay. When you are house hunting or updating your present home, become knowledgeable about the possibilities, such as low-e windows and programmable thermostats. Be energy conscious outside your home as well and landscape with drought tolerant, native plants. Making the choice to incorporate such components may even result in a tax benefit (check with your tax professional.)

Upscale Master Bath

Many Americans are seeking to recreate the spa experience at home. Now many bathrooms are larger and more imposing than the typical toilet/tub/shower arrangements of the past. Today’s master bath is often dramatically constructed from glass, stone, tile or cement. Fixtures are heavy duty stainless or nickel and options such as self-closing/cleaning toilets, steam showers, saunas, and bidets are popular.

Family Room Kitchens

When it comes to cooking and entertaining, we’ve taken it to a whole new level. Gourmet kitchens became a prevalent design feature about ten years ago and show no signs of going away. Solid surface countertops, stainless steel appliances, oversize cook-tops, extra sinks and ovens are practically standard these days. Another kitchen trend that is evolving is the inclusion of a home’s family room; either directly adjacent to or as part of the kitchen. We’ve all been there: at parties or family gatherings, where does everyone invariably end up? The kitchen, of course! So it just make sense to go ahead and put in some comfy seating, ambient lighting, perhaps a sound system, and just enjoy it!

Special Interest Room

There is often at least one room or space in most homes that fails to serve its designated purpose. It could be an extra bedroom, room over the garage, or basement. Lately, this problem has been resolved with the creation of a special interest room. Of course, just which interest is addressed will depend on the needs and interests of the homeowners. In parts of the country where basements are standard, they are often being transformed into home gyms, yoga studios, or wine cellars. Extra bedrooms are often used as playrooms, media rooms, craft/hobby rooms, and even upstairs laundry rooms. The wonderful thing about this trend is that the choice is only limited by the creativity of the homeowner!

Outdoor Entertaining

Entertaining outside is not just for summertime barbecues! All over the country, outdoor kitchens and entertaining areas have become very popular. Regardless of where you are, from the sunny states to the cooler ones, homeowners are taking the party outside. The sky is the limit on how far you can go with an outdoor kitchen. The same upscale features seen on inside kitchens are possible along with built in grills, barbecue pits, and brick ovens. Indoor/outdoor fabrics and rugs, fans, heaters, and outdoor fireplaces all make it easy to entertain and dine al fresco.

Real estate is pretty low these days. I’m not an expert on real estate so I don’t know if we’re in a bull’s market or a bear’s market. I don’t really know what either of those terms means or if they even apply to real estate. But I can say this, that it’s a buyer’s market.

About right now a real estate agent friend of mine would be saying that I nailed the market identification, how could I not know the difference between the markets? It’s easy. Anyone can see that a buyer runs the market right now. But, knowing the actual terminology of that is tough for someone who doesn’t work in that field.

Either way, it’s a buyer’s market and that’s why sellers need to be on their toes. If you’re selling your own home, all you need to do is look at advertisements run by professionals. They can give you a good model by which to run your own sale.

Look at how they classify their homes. Look at how they list them. What pictures do they display? How do they describe the property? In that information is where you will find most of your answers.

One main thing that all real estate agents do, and anyone else in sales for that matter, is list all the outstanding features of a home. An advertisement wouldn’t be any good if it listed all the common features a home should have. I think I would literally fall off my chair if I read an advertisement that pointed out that a house had floors. Could you imagine?

“Our spacious home has floors. They cover the living room, the dining room and the kitchen as well as all the other rooms around the home. There is another grand feature to this home that you would most likely enjoy, it has a roof. The roof covers the entire home. We made it a point to make sure that it did.”

Now, that advertisement would simply floor me. The pun was absolutely intended. So, features that every home should have is not worth mentioning. Of course, if those floors are marble or fine wood, then it’s good to point that out to your readers. But for the most part, you want to mention features that stand out prominently and that add value to the home.

The fireplace is such a feature to advertise. Real estate agents love pointing out when the home has a beautiful fireplace. That’s because fireplaces aren’t in every home, but they should be. They very easily could be.

If you have a fireplace, then list it as a feature of the home. Make sure you note everything that is interesting about it. You may not be a writer. But you can stand back, look at the fireplace and note all the unique things that you like about it. If it needs work, put some elbow grease into it.

If you don’t have a fireplace, installing a ventless gel fireplace can be done in as little as a weekend for less money than it takes to buy a new phone. Well, some phones that are on the market anyway. A ventless fireplace can look any way you want. They can match any style of room, even if you wanted to change it before you put your home on the market.

Calling a contractor and getting an estimate could be an eye-opener and a big crunch on your wallet. Some expenses are necessary. If you want to move the home, you might need to make those big purchases. A fireplace doesn’t have to be one of them. A ventless fireplace can move your home as easily as a traditional wood burning fireplace, only it’s much less expensive to install. Look into it!

A Broker Price Opinion, commonly referred to as a BPO, is a process completed by a licensed real estate agent or broker that provides their opinion of the value of a piece of real estate. BPO orders are completed for banks, lenders, investors or owners of real estate to determine its value. The Broker Price Opinion agent visits and takes photos of the property to report back to the lender with an opinion of its value.

Types of Broker Price Opinion Orders

There are 3 types of BPO orders: Interior, Exterior, and Desktop.

• Interior BPO Order – Which is completed by the agent or broker going to the property and taking a photo of every room in the house including laundry room, garage, sheds and photos of A/C system, water weater, furnace, etc., and then completing the online forms.
• Exterior BPO Order – Which is completed by the agent or broker going to the property and taking a photo of the front of the house, address verification, and street view, and then completing the online forms.
• Desktop BPO – Which is completed by the agent or broker on a computer by simply completing the online forms.

The online forms require all the information about the subject property and neighborhood information. The value is determined by using 3 comparable properties that are for sale within 1-3 miles of the subject property and 3 comparable properties that have sold in the past 3-6 months that within 1-3 miles of the subject property. The forms require all the information on all comparable properties used. Many different things can cause a BPO to need to be completed such as a loan modification, foreclosure short sale, and many other significant transactions. A BPO is very important for banks, lenders and investors to determine the value of a property. Banks could use an appraiser but that would cost $300-400 versus $50 for a licensed real estate agent or broker.

BPO or Broker Price Opinion orders can be an incredible source of income for real estate professionals, the typical broker price opinion pays $40-$75 per order and real estate agents and brokers can be assigned anywhere from 10-100 broker price opinion orders per week. There are many BPO or broker price opinion training courses, BPO companies, BPO forms available on the internet. The BPO REO Academy is the most comprehensive BPO Broker Price Opinion training and courses on the market and is owned by a licensed real estate professional who has completed over 6000 BPO’s and counting.

Inventory was at its highest level since June 2009, and for the fifth month in a row, reports revealed a constant increase. Pending sales of single family detached homes, projecting the second biggest sale of the year, showed unwavering strength. Seventy percent of Pleasanton’s inventory in July, which consisted of homes priced below $1 million, was what accounted for the increase in both inventory and pending sales.

In general, there was an increase of four units (1.8 %) of single family detached homes on the market, towards the end of the month in July with 224, as compared to that of June’s with 220. There was an eight percent, or five units increase in unsettled sales from 62 in June to 67 in July. Relative to pending sales, which increased in July, inventory decreased despite the rising of absolute inventory levels in the same month. At the end of the month, 3.3 months of it were available, as compared to 3.5 months in June.

An inventory increase of six percent in the homes priced under $1 million, with 157 homes in July from 148 in June was posted. Sales that were pending increased at 11% rate to 52 in July from 47 in June. Inventory compared to unsettled sales in this price range was at 3.0 months in July, which barely changed from being at 3.1 in June. This price range was accountable for both of 70% inventory and 78% of sales pending of Pleasanton Market’s in July.

For homes within the 1 million and $2 million price range, a dipping of the inventory was monitored. At the end of July, there were 47 of those homes available on the market as compared to having 52 at the end of June. It was a matter of 10% decrease, or 5 units. Sales that were pending slightly increased to 15 units in July from 14 in June. Inventory relative to pending sales was down at 3.1 months in July from 3.7 in June. This segment was what comprised 21% inventory and 22% sales in pending in the month of July.

Not much volatility of the market was accounted in homes that cost more than $2 million. Twenty units of these homes were available in the market at the end of July, which was the same for the month of June. In terms of sales pending, there was none for the month while there was one in June.

Inventory carried on with its upward movement but sales increased more, thus lowering the relative inventory level in Pleasanton. With the number of sales in pending at the current level, the market is generally in good shape.

Manhattan Beach real estate can easily be described as a neighborhood of homes made for paradise and prestige. The general scenery of the Manhattan Beach area is very much like the scenery in the hit television show “The O.C.” which coincidentally was filmed there.

Manhattan is one of the most expensive coastal towns in America. To live there is almost twice as costly as living in areas such as Bel-Air. The cost of the average Manhattan Beach real estate falls in between $900,000 and $6,000,000. To rent a property is even more costly at $3,000 to $10,000 a month. The area is definitely an upper class expensive area with the average household grossing about $100,750 per year.

The population of Manhattan is roughly 37,745 and consists of 92% white Americans. The other eight percent of the population is divided between African Americans and Asian Americans. The male to female ratio is just about even and the median age of residents is 37.7 years old.

Manhattan Beach is divided into several different sections as per the assignment of the long-term residents.

The area known as “The Strand” consists of a long stretch of land along a bike patch that has multi-million dollar ocean front homes lines up along it.

The “Tree Section” is a quiet family oriented section with lots of space in between the homes and room for children to play. The Tree Section was named the tree section because of the names of the streets in the area. Most streets in this section of Manhattan Beach are named after trees such as Elm, Oak, Pine, Palm, and Poinsettia streets. The tree section also has many trees throughout the lands but ironically this was not the reason why it was named the tree section.

The area west of the tree section is known as “The Sand Section” and is basically where all the sand is. Manhattan Beach real estate in this area are adjacent to the ocean. The Sand Section got its name from the sands of the oceans.

The Hill Section was very appropriately named as it consists of a group of higher priced homes which are situated on steep hills overlooking the ocean.

There are many more sections within Manhattan Beach real estate, but those are the four most prominent. No matter what section is chosen to live in, residents are sure to feel like celebrities on a fantasy vacation.